


How to Kiss a Boy

by lunarlychallenged



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 09:02:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14132718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarlychallenged/pseuds/lunarlychallenged
Summary: Jemma decided that it was high time she kissed a boy for the first time, but she seemed to find something wrong with every boy she met.





	How to Kiss a Boy

Sometimes Jemma thought that the world would end before she had her first kiss, and sometimes she was totally okay with that.

She had heard enough stories from Daisy about disgusting boys stealing kisses that weren’t meant for them. She dreaded the idea of kissing boys with a cold; she feared that she would be able to taste the mucus in his throat. She had been told by Bobbi once that if she kissed a boy with chapped lips, she might end up with a bit of the skin from his lips in her mouth. Maybe they were exaggerating; they did enjoy teasing her about being nineteen and unkissed. Even so, she had heard enough kissing horror stories to be wary of kissing a boy that she did not think was worth the risk.

Perhaps that wariness could have convinced her to swear off kissing entirely, had it not been for that ache in her chest when she saw a couple so clearly made for each other that it made her feel inherently lonely. The feeling would set in when she saw people in coffee shops, so busy staring into each others eyes that their coffees went cold; when she saw a boy warming his lover’s hands with his own, making her fingers chilly when she thought about how lonely her own hands were. 

The fact was, Jemma Simmons was lonely. She was lonely in a way that Daisy and Bobbi couldn’t touch. She was lonely in a way that science could only distract her from for so long, though she could have named every hormone and chemical that caused that feeling. She was lonely in a way that Fitz did not seem to be, though he spent most of his time with her.

She decided one afternoon, while sitting on her own in her dorm, that it was about time she started looking for the perfect boy to kiss. One that she wanted to kiss, and one that she wouldn’t regret kissing later. It was difficult to predict what she would regret later, but she thought that it was a necessary qualification. The only thing worse than dealing with Daisy’s teasing was the teasing she would surely endure if her first kiss was a total mess.

She would find her ideal boy, and she would kiss him. She was nineteen, a genius, and tired of wondering what something would be like when she could easily go out in pursuit of the knowledge on her own.

 

September

 

“You should kiss Fitz,” Daisy said when Jemma told her about the plan. The gym was crowded, but neither girl bothered to keep her voice down. The workout equipment was deafening.

Jemma’s nose wrinkled. “Really? I tell you that I’m going to have my first kiss, and that’s all you have to say?”

Daisy shrugged. She was wearing sweaty workout clothes, but she somehow looked effortlessly beautiful. It was one of the few mysteries of the universe that Jemma had no patience for. She looked nothing like Daisy, and that was fine, but she did envy the ability to be the prettiest girl in any room without an ounce of effort. Jemma wore a similar outfit, but her sweat was less of a sheen and more of a flood. Her hair was limp instead of full, and her cheeks had gone blotchy and red. Unfair.

“You two are practically psychically linked. If soulmates exist - I know that you don’t believe in them, Simmons, simmer down. But if they do, it’s Fitzsimmons.”

“It has to be Fitz,” Bobbi agreed. Like Daisy, she looked flawless. Jemma made a note to find less attractive friends to work out with. “It’s inevitable.”

“I’m looking for a real kiss,” Jemma said. She was walking slowly, trying to regain her breath after going for a run. “I want to want to kiss him, and I want him to want to kiss me. Leo doesn’t fit the bill.”

Daisy rolled her eyes hard enough for it to make Jemma’s eyes ache in sympathy. “Bull.”

Bobbi gave a soft, almost pitying smile. “You and Fitz definitely fit the bill. Halfway, at the very least.”

Jemma rubbed wearily at her face. She and Fitz were practically inseparable, but that had nothing to do with attraction. “You’re looking for a sign where there isn’t one. I am not kissing Fitz. I’m going to have a proper first kiss, and that’s final.”

 

“I’m going to kiss a boy,” Jemma announced to the nearly empty breakfast table. For the first few months of her freshman year, three years prior, she had been the only person to occupy the space. She was a believer in making the most of the day, so she was often going to bed too late and getting up too early. When she and Fitz became friends, he sometimes decided to join her for breakfast, though Jemma had no idea why. He hated early mornings, so he would eat with a frown and furrowed brow. Even so, he ate with her, and she thought that it was awfully sweet of him.

They had eaten together through their rushed undergraduate and graduate years. They had continued to stick together, and as they worked on their respective doctorates, she was relieved. She had missed out on so many parts of being normal, but having someone just as extraordinary as she was made her feel like she was living a life instead of missing out on one.

Fitz, who had just buried his teeth into a piece of toast slathered to the brim with jam, choked a little on the mouthful. He wheezed a little, having inhaled a few too many crumbs, and gaped at her. “What boy?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” she said sheepishly. Quickly regaining her composure, she added, “I don’t much care. I just want to get it over with.”

There was a peculiar look on his face, maybe just surprise? He didn’t handle surprises well. A slow smirk spread across his serious face. “You don’t care who?”

“No,” she replied. Looking at the smug smile on his face, a part of her half expected him to offer to do it himself. That would certainly have been a shock, especially after she had so confidently denied the possibility at the gym, but the more shocking thing was that that part of her was also a little hopeful.

“You should kiss Milton,” he said with delicious cruelty. That hopeful part of her sank, and the vacated space was filled with confusion. She shoved it away; better to look over the intrusive thought when the boy at the center of it wasn’t there.

“Maybe I will,” she sniffed. “He’s very smart, you know, and smart is the new sexy.”

Fitz glowered a little. “He has a cabbage head, Jem. Nobody is smart enough to make up for a cabbage head. Except me, maybe, but I have a very nice head.”

She reached over and ruffled his hair, noting both the way he jerked away and the way his lips quirked up. “You shouldn’t have planted the idea, then. If I kiss Milton, it’s your fault.”

“If I had thought that you would really consider it, I would have kept it to myself. What’s this about, anyway?” He shoved the last bit of toast into his mouth, bad mood killed by her declaration.

“I’m ready,” she said simply. That was the truth, entirely.

“You’re sure?” Fitz avoided looking at her, which she knew was proof that he was listening closely. 

“Sure. It doesn’t have to be a big deal, right? Most everybody has kissed somebody by my age. You already have,” she added.

He waved it off, though his ears went a little pink. He had talked about his first kiss a few months earlier, when he was drunk on exhaustion and the victory of finishing finals. He had kissed a girl at a winter formal, and when she got a little too enthusiastic, he accidentally bit her tongue. “That’s not the point. Do you actually want to kiss somebody, or are you just getting it over with?”

At that precise moment, the answer was the latter. At that moment, sitting with her best friend, she found that she had no interest in thinking about kissing some nameless, faceless boy. The thrill that had been there when she made the plan had dissipated while he told him to kiss Milton, and that was a little worrisome. “I’m ready,” she lied, stirring sugar into her tea. “It’s like an experiment, and I’m ready to get the results.”

 

October

 

A month had passed, and though the urge to kiss a boy had come back, she still hadn’t done it. She had looked at boys, considering her options, but none of them seemed right.

The boy that sat behind her in her required philosophy class was nice, but she didn’t like the way he had sweat stains under his arms.

One of Daisy’s friends, Antoine, was very kind and very handsome, but she wasn’t sure that she liked the idea of his facial hair. It looked scratchy, and that didn’t seem quite right.

There was a very smart boy in her chemistry class, but he wasn’t very handsome. There was no part of her body that wanted to be near any part of his, so clearly that ruled him out.

The boy talking to her in the bar at that precise moment was very handsome, and there was some part of her that did rather like the idea of touching him, but she was so terribly bored with him that she just wanted him to leave.

Just kiss him. That was all it would take. Lean in, a quick press of the lips, and lean back. If she liked it, she could lean back in.

“Yeah,” he was saying. “When I played football in high school, I was the biggest guy on the team.” His wonderfully symmetrical lips curled into a smirk; he clearly wanted her to interpret the declaration in multiple ways.

Just get it over with. 

She smiled, hoping that it was coy instead of cringey, but he hardly noticed. He would not be able to tell her that she had a pretty pair of eyes, since he had been focusing on a very different type of pair all evening.

Just lean in.

When she leaned in, it was to pick up her purse. She pretended to see someone waving at her over his shoulder and smiled apologetically. “I have to run,” she lied. “A friend needs me.” She walked away, not giving him time to respond, and was terribly relieved to get away.

She jogged over to Daisy, who was dancing smoothly by the bar while she waited for a drink.

“Everything going alright with your dude?” Daisy waggled her eyebrows at Jemma, who tried and failed to smile back.

“I think I’m done with him,” she said.

“I didn’t see you kiss him yet,” Daisy frowned. The girls had gone to the bar for that sole purpose. After watching Jemma come up with numerous reasons not to kiss any of the boys they knew, Daisy had suggested that they go find a boy she wouldn’t know. A boy she would never have to see again. Chat him up, kiss him, leave him. Simple and quick and effective.

“I don’t want to,” Jemma replied. Even to herself, the words sounded baffled and defeated.

“Jem, have you considered-”

“Don’t,” Jemma said.

“Have you considered that maybe you just aren’t ready yet?” Daisy gave her an encouraging smile, but it just made Jemma feel like more of a failure. “It’s not weird to not want to kiss somebody. It’s okay if you want to wait, or if you never want to at all.”

“That’s not it,” she said. She did want to kiss somebody. She wanted it every time she watched a romantic movie; the desire would sometimes set in late at night, when she would lay awake in bed with her fingers inching under the waistband of her night shorts. She really did. “I think that I want something that lasts. Not just a throwaway kiss,” she added. True, maybe, but still not helpful. She had talked to plenty of boys who she might have had a real relationship with, and she always turned them away.

“Okay,” Daisy said. She still had that sort of pitying look on her face, and Jemma hated it. She wanted to kiss somebody, but that somebody wasn’t one of the people she had looked at. 

She hoped that he would show up soon. She was getting tired of looking for somebody that wasn’t there.

 

Leaving the bar left her feeling thoroughly disheartened. Self-sabatoge had never been her style; Jemma Simmons was the picture of ambition. Why was it that the one time she set a goal that other people found easy was the one time she found herself turning away every opportunity that presented itself?

“Because you aren’t ready,” Daisy suggested through a mouthful of crisps. A possibility, Jemma supposed, but unlikely. She thought that she was very ready.

“Because it’s supposed to be Fitz,” Bobbi said again. Jemma shoved that one aside, hopefully never to resurface. 

When she asked Fitz what he thought, his Adam’s apple had bobbed aggressively.

“It’s for science, Fitz,” she said impatiently. “What’s your hypothesis?”

“You just haven’t found somebody you want to kiss yet,” he finally said. “You have standards, and nobody meets them.” She already knew that, of course, but hearing it from him made her think that it was the answer.

So finding a boy that she wanted to kiss and wouldn’t regret kissing was harder than she thought. That was okay. She would just have to change her plan. If there was a roadblock, she would take a different road to reach the same destination.

Jemma would scrap the kissing goal, and least for the time being. She would put the proverbial pin in it. If she couldn’t bring herself to treat her first kiss as something to give away freely, she would just have to treat it like something important. She would give it to somebody deserving; somebody who she wanted to give more than a kiss to. She would stop looking for somebody to kiss and start looking for somebody to start a relationship with.

 

November

 

“Fitz,” she said one evening. He was sitting with her while she did her organic chemistry homework, ignoring his own studies in favor of fiddling with a rubix cube. He could solve it in well under thirty seconds, but he still enjoyed testing himself.

He looked up at her when she didn’t continue. “Hm?”

“Why don’t you have a girlfriend?”

His face went a little slack. Jemma loved the way his face went blank when she surprised him; it made her want to laugh. “Dunno. Am I supposed to have one?”

She shrugged, looking down at her sneakers. “Not supposed to, no. I just wonder why you haven’t got one.”

He shrugged, closing his eyes and tilting his head back against the back of the chair. It was getting late, she realized. Fitz’s jaw was lined with stubble that he had forgotten to shave that morning and allowed to grow steadily throughout the day. Her eyes were clinging to it. She tried to tell herself that it was because she wasn’t used to seeing him unshaven, but the way her stomach kicked nulled that point. She liked it. She liked the way he looked, a little messy and undone.

“Why haven’t you got a boyfriend?” he asked. 

Because she was too busy studying in the evenings to go on dates. Because she would rather talk about science than anything else. Because she liked to argue, and that wasn’t the type of feel-good activity that most boys enjoyed. Because if she had to choose between spending a weekend with Fitz and going out on a date, she already knew the answer.

“I guess I’m too busy,” she said uneasily. She had been looking. Though she had known that finding a boy worth dating would be harder than just finding a boy to kiss, she was still a little surprised that nobody had been even remotely appealing to her.

“Romance is overrated,” he teased with a light smile. “Who needs love when there are universe-sized mysteries to solve?”

She gave a weak smile. She had said something similar to him the year before, when they sat together on New Years Eve. He had looked a little uncomfortable while they watched people pair up to watch the ball drop, so the pep talk was supposed to be encouraging. Somehow it didn’t make her feel better; she just felt lonely. There were universe-sized mysteries, sure, but sometimes the size of them made her feel very small and very alone. 

Luckily for Jemma, it was easy to ignore how inconsequential her own life was in the grand scheme of things when she sat next to Fitz. 

 

December

 

“I’m giving up,” Jemma dramatically declared.

Fitz blinked owlishly at her. His mouth was full of the sugar cookie she had given him when he picked her up to go to the airport. He hurriedly chewed, swallowed, and frowned at her. “Giving up on what?”

“Men,” she intoned.

His lips quirked, but he valiantly schooled his face into concern. “What did we do to warrant such a loss?”

“I made a goal, Leopold. I decided to kiss a boy, and I haven’t. I decided to date a boy, and I haven’t.”

He stopped trying to stifle the smile. It blossomed, full and lovely and mind-numbing. Jemma could have sworn that her heart truly stopped at the sight of it. “Giving up on men won’t help you there, Jem.”

“I know,” she said. “But if I give up on them entirely, I won’t feel guilty about failing.” A lie - such a lie. Any failure was guilt inducing. That was why she didn’t fail. But maybe it was time to give up. She was a scientist, after all, and sometimes things had to be studied in their natural habitats. Maybe she hadn’t been able to manage it because she had been trying to force it.

Fitz shrugged. “Go ahead and give up. No harm done.”

She simmered as they sat and waited for the plane home to start boarding. No harm done. That was a lie, too. Her ego had taken a bruising. Her self-confidence was down the drain. She was miserable about it, but every time she imagined going out with somebody boring or annoying or unappealing, she felt even worse.

His lips curled up again. “I suppose I’ll have to switch seats, yeah? Can’t hang out together now that you’re done with men.”

She snorted, heart lifting a little. “Not you,” she decided. “I’ll never give up on you.” 

She leaned into his arm, planning to only let it be a small bump until he raised his arm up to put it around her shoulder. After a second of not-thought, she found herself settling in.

“I’ll never give up on you either, Jemma,” Fitz said. She didn’t ask about it, but the way he said it felt a little different than the way she said it. The way she said it was resigned, but he just sounded happy.

 

A New Years party. Simultaneously the highlight and the lowlight of the year, at least for somebody single and unhappy about it. Jemma and Fitz had flown back to the States the day before. Hunter and Bobbi had a party every year, stocked to the brim with alcohol and people that she had never seen before. It was the place to be, but she didn’t really feel like being there.

9:00, and she was watching Daisy throw back another shot.

“Have one, Simmons. You look like you’re being led to the guillotine.” Daisy held out a small glass, but Jemma shook her head.

“No, thank you. I want to actually remember the party when I get up tomorrow,” she said with a wrinkled nose.

“I’m sure,” Daisy said with a grin. “Big night?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s New Years Eve,” Daisy said. Her eyebrows went up, as though her meaning was supposed to be obvious. “This is the perfect night to kiss a guy with no repercussions.”

Jemma swallowed thickly. She had thought about it, sure. The year before, she just hugged Fitz at midnight. Enjoyable, for sure, but not exactly the way she wanted to ring in the new year. “I suppose,” she allowed. She could give up on guys with an exception for the night, right?

She grabbed a shot and tossed it back, hoping the only burn she’d feel that night was the burn of the vodka.

10:30, and she had not found the right boy yet. The right boy was single. The right boy wouldn’t expect her to have sex with him. The right boy wouldn’t expect a date. The right boy was pretty hard to find.

Jemma did not dance, so she sipped at a beer with Fitz.

“Hogwarts probably doesn’t need Wifi,” she told him. “Magic probably interferes with electronics.”

“They have Muggle Studies as a class, Jemma,” Fitz said matter-of-factly. “Muggles use technology, so it has to work. They can’t teach a class about muggles if they can’t use tech.”

“Hogwarts doesn’t show up on maps! Muggles can’t find it. Wizards can’t apparate there. It’s supposed to be separate from society, and technology would interfere with that! Fitz, it’s so obvious!” 

Fitz put a gentle hand on her arm. She had been gesturing wildly with her cup, and a little beer had spilled over the edge. She looked at him, smiling sheepishly, but the breath caught. They were a lot closer than she had thought. He had a patient smile on his face, and the soft look on his face made her heart beat wildly.

When had she leaned in?

Hunter came up behind Fitz, nudging him with a fresh cup of beer. “Mate, this is a party. Cool the science talk.”

“It’s magic,” they chorused, moving back a little.

Hunter rolled his eyes, looking truly pained. “Get drunk. Get stupid. Have fun.”

Jemma had been having fun for the first time that night, but she gave in and swallowed the rest of her beer.

11:55, and she found herself talking to, believe it or not, Milton.

She had lost Fitz when she turned to say something to Bobbi. How could two stationary people lose each other? Maybe Hogwarts defied physics, but parties seemed to surpass even magic when it came to breaking rules.

Milton was very nice. He told her that she looked pretty. He told her that she was the smartest girl at school. He told her that her paper about the potential combination of viruses that could combine to cause a zombie outbreak was fascinating.

In short, he said all the right things, he said them all just right, and he said them all at the exact right time. He played his cards right, but all she could think of was Fitz saying that no intelligence could make up for having a cabbage head. It was shaped more like a brussel sprout, really, but the fact remained.

11:58, and she decided that she could not kiss Milton. The way she started out the new year mattered, somehow, to a slightly tipsy Jemma. She could not start it by kissing Milton.

11:59, and she saw Fitz sitting in a corner, all alone. She sat next to him, pretending not to see the happy surprise on his face.

“Fancy seeing you here,” she said.

“I thought you were going to kiss Milton,” he said frankly.

She shrugged. “Cabbage just doesn’t do it for me. I thought that I’d find somebody with a nicer head.”

12:00, and Fitz put an arm around her shoulder for a one-sided hug. She leaned into him, noting with a little surprise that his baby fat was gone, leaving only lean muscle. When had that happened? She watched couples and friends exchanging friendly (or significantly more than friendly) kisses, but she found that she didn’t envy them at all. Her heart was racing for a reason that was decidedly different from jealousy.

 

January

 

Four months had passed, and her lips were as untouched as they had been when she started college. At the start, she could have explained it away as a lack of opportunity. That wasn’t an option anymore. If there was something interfering with her plan, it wasn’t the boys. It had to be something within her.

Think, Jemma.

She laid in bed, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. Think. What was wrong with the boys that she was looking at? She knew what she wanted from a future boyfriend. She had made list after list of requirements and hopes and red flags when she was a kid, thinking that maybe she would know the boy when she found him.

She had met boys in the past weeks with some of the list items, so why had she decided against them? Think.

She groaned, clapping a hand over her mouth when she heard Daisy shift in bed. Maybe she couldn’t come up with something because she was too close to the situation. She had told Fitz that it was like an experiment; maybe she just needed to ask - 

Fitz.

His name hit her like a ton of bricks, stealing her breath and stilling her hands. That was it. They were psychically linked. They studied together. He hugged her on bad days, and she made him food or forced him to take a break when he was burning out. If she had a problem, she went to him. When something amazing happened, she wanted to tell him first. 

Jemma didn’t want to kiss a boy unless she was willing to be with him because she was ready to find someone to be with. Somebody to, as Daisy said, make science babies with. As a scientist, she knew that sex did not have to be related to love. As a girl, she desperately wanted it to be. She didn’t want to date any of the boys she had looked at because all of the roles of a boyfriend had already been filled.

Filled by Fitz.

She shared everything with Fitz. Fitz gave her everything a boyfriend could give her, and he probably did it better than any other boy could. He had given her everything; everything except the kiss that she had been looking for.

She couldn’t kiss other boys because to kiss somebody who wasn’t Fitz would feel like cheating on him, though they weren’t together. Their lives had been tied together for so long that to untangle herself and tie up with someone else seemed criminal. Maybe it was. Maybe, like her friends had said, Fitz and Simmons were inevitable.

 

She wanted to tell him in January. 

He hit her with a snowball one day, claiming that he needed to test the D.W.A.R.F.S. ability to use projectiles. It had launched a full blown snowball fight between the two, complete with laughter and undignified screaming. After they finished, they shed their wet clothes in his room and he lent her a pair of sweatpants and a sweater to wear while they watched a Downton Abbey rerun.

 

February

 

She wanted to tell him in February.

They went about their usual Palentines routine, but there was a little more touching than previous years. They ate, they watched X-Men, and they discussed the likelihood of naturally occurring mutations taking place on such a large scale. They ended up curled in bed together, whispering back and forth as they worked on their dissertations. 

It had all been very nice, and it made Jemma’s stomach turn to a fluttery mess, but it all froze when Fitz’s roommate walked in.

He didn’t say anything about Jemma being in bed with Fitz; everybody around them had been forced to come to terms with how close the two were. 

“How was the date?” Fitz asked him. She knew that Fitz hardly cared, but Fitz had learned over the years that roommates were less annoyed by small explosions and a room that smelled of thick smoke when they liked the cause of it. He did his best to stay on their good sides.

The boy sighed. “It was rough, dude. She thought that it was, like, a big thing because it was Valentine's Day. We’ve only gone out three times. We aren’t something big yet.”

The two scientists made sympathetic sounds, though Simmons thought that it was a sort of big day. A day driven by capitalism, certainly, but esteemed enough by couples to warrant something.

The roommate continued, tossing pants out of his drawer while he looked for a pair of socks. “You’re lucky to be single, Fitzy. Women want to eat men alive. No offense, Simmons,” he added as an afterthought.

“Right you are,” Fitz agreed distantly. He was typing rapidly on his tablet, eyes alight with the relief of finding the right turn of phrase for his paper. 

Jemma knew that Fitz was agreeing out of obligation, but her heart still sank. The firm press of his chest against her side felt less comforting than it felt teasing; she could touch him, but in that moment, she felt like she could never keep him.

 

March

 

She decided to tell him in March. She had to tell him. Progress was not made by those who feared change, and the world only gave back to the hardworking. She would tell him, and even if it all went badly, at least she wouldn’t be trapped in limbo anymore.

She would ease into it, she decided while they stood in line for coffee at their favorite shop. They went there every morning, and she thought that if she snuck in little pieces of the topic day by day, it may be less nerve racking when she reached the big moment. She wouldn’t just ask him out; she would work up to that part of the conversation.

She started it simply enough, hoping against hope that he would understand where she was headed and meet her halfway. “Do you remember when I said that I would never give up on you?”

“Sure,” he said with a crooked smile. “Did you change your mind?”

“Never,” she promised solemnly. “But what did you mean when you said you were never giving up on me?”

He suddenly became very interested in his monstrously sweet beverage. “Same as you, I suppose.”

“No, Fitz,” she said crossly. “You can’t have. What part of me aren’t you giving up on?”

He fidgeted, ripping his straw wrapper into pieces. “Every part, Jemma. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

She dropped it, at least for that day. Later in the week, she tried again.

“Fitz? Do you remember when I told you that I was giving up on men?”

He nodded, dragging a finger along the rim of his plastic cup to scoop up some excess whipped cream. “Changing your mind?”

“Not exactly. I didn’t give up on all of them,” she said. He looked up, intrigued, and she powered on. “But I need to figure something out.”

“You’re good enough at that,” he said lightly. “You’ll be dating by nightfall.”

“I hope so,” she said. She hesitated, but reached across the table to grab his hand. He stared at their fingers, not moving away, and for the first time, she thought that there may be cause for hope. “But first, I need to make sure that he’s on the same page as I am.”

“He’s an idiot if he isn’t.” Fitz’s voice was thick, but he cleared it and shot her an odd smile, too light compared to his disappointed eyes. “So long as it isn’t Milton, you should be fine.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “No, I gave up on Milton ages ago. I never had faith in him at all, really. But, see, I told you that I wasn’t giving up on you, and I think that I’m ready to take that a step farther.”

“Oh?” Fitz’s eyes had taken on a cautious hope.

“Absolutely,” Jemma said. “But I’m not sure that I should, since you don’t mean anything by it.”

Fitz gaped at her, ignoring the glob of whipped cream that was sliding down the side of his cup. Then, systematically, he moved each of their drinks off to the side of the table. She watched, confused, as he stood, braced his hands on the tabletop, and leaned across to press his lips against hers.

It was an awkward position, really. The angle was odd, there was no way to deepen the kiss, and her smile grew too broad to make for a good kiss. Even so, his lips were soft, the stubble on his cheeks scratched deliciously against her cheeks, and he tasted like chocolate syrup.

Fitz sat back down, hands a little shaky. “Have you figured everything out?”

She grinned at him, heart dancing a jig in her chest. His ears were pink, but his eyes were bright and delighted. “Quite a bit has been illuminated,” she said cheerily. “But I think that I may need a little more later. For science, of course.”

He nodded with an equally goofy smile. “Right. For science.”

They did a lot of science that day.


End file.
